Who can talk to whom on Roblox: the six chat age brackets
After the age check, every account lands in a bracket — under 9, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, or 21 and up — and only talks to its own bracket and the neighbouring ones. Here is the full table, what changes in each one, and how a younger sibling gets into the conversation.
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If you tried to message someone on Roblox and the conversation simply did not open, it was probably not a bug. Since the platform started requiring an age check to use chat, every account gets an age bracket, and the bracket decides who you can talk to.
This piece explains the six brackets that exist, shows who each one talks to, and says what to do when the estimated age comes out wrong — which is the situation that generates the most complaints.
The short answer
After you go through the check, the platform tells you your bracket. There are six: under 9, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, and 21 or older.
The rule is a single one: you talk to your bracket and to the brackets near yours. It is not a line between "child" and "adult" — it is a staircase, and each step reaches the neighbouring steps.
The official announcement gives two examples that settle most of the questions. A player estimated at 12 talks to anyone 15 or under in the in-game chat. A player of 18 talks to anyone 16 or older. Both sides of the rule work: someone 16 or older cannot even start a conversation with an account estimated at 12.
Two additional rules apply to the youngest. Under nine, in-game chat comes switched off by default, and only turns on with a guardian's consent after the check. And chat outside a game — the conversation on the platform, away from a match — stays restricted for anyone under 13.
How to find your bracket, and what to do if it is wrong
The bracket is shown to you at the end of the verification process: the platform tells you which bracket was assigned to your account.
The check is done inside the app itself, using the device's camera. Anyone 13 or older can also verify with an ID document, which is the better route when the camera estimate comes out wrong.
About the images: they are processed by an outside vendor and deleted right after processing. They are not kept on your profile and they do not become a public photo.
If the bracket came out wrong — and it does, because face estimation makes mistakes — there are two routes:
- Redo it with an ID document, if you are 13 or older. A document is more precise than a facial estimate.
- Through parental controls, if the account belongs to a child with a linked guardian account. The guardian can adjust the child's date of birth through parental controls once the check is complete.
The six brackets, and who each one talks to
The table below puts the six brackets together with what each one can do inside and outside a game, and repeats the two official examples so they can serve as a reference.
What the table cannot show, and is worth saying in words: neighbouring brackets are not symmetrical in every case. The block is designed to stop an adult from starting a conversation with a child, not to stop two people of similar age from talking. That is why the Elisa example says anyone 16 or older is prevented from starting a conversation with her — the barrier is on the other side.
Another point the table does not cover: "chat inside a game" and "chat outside a game" are two different things, and only the second is the standalone conversation on the platform — the one you open from somebody's profile, away from any match. That is the one restricted under 13. The chat inside an experience, which is there to coordinate play, follows its own rule and arrives earlier, because it is the part you need to play as a team.
It is also worth noting what the brackets do not decide. They do not touch which games you can join, they do not change what you can buy, and they do not alter your avatar. The bracket is a communication rule, and nothing else.
The catches
The check is optional; chat is not optional without it. Nobody forces you to verify. But without verification chat does not open. In practice, for anyone playing with friends, it stopped being a choice.
Face estimation errs in both directions. A teenager can be estimated as younger and lose access to conversation with people their own age. The correction route exists and is in the section above — but it needs a document, and not everyone has one.
A bracket is not your real age. The platform works with the estimated age. If you are 17 and were estimated at 15, the rule that applies is the one for 15.
Siblings of different ages need Trusted Friends. Talking across distant brackets does not happen by accident. From 13 up, with a verified age, you can talk freely with people you know using Trusted Friends. That is the route for an older sibling to talk to a younger one.
Changing the age on your profile does not change the bracket. The bracket comes from the check. Editing your date of birth on your own does not reopen chat, and trying to get around it usually ends in a limited account.
What to do next
If your chat does not open, the first step is to check whether the verification was completed — not whether it was started. Plenty of people begin the process, close the app halfway through, and think they finished.
If the verification was completed and the bracket came out wrong, redo it with a document if you are old enough. If the account belongs to a child, the adjustment goes through the guardian, in parental controls.
And if the problem is talking to someone in another bracket — a sibling, a cousin, a younger friend — the route is not to try to change the bracket: it is Trusted Friends, which exists for exactly that case and has rules of its own.
One last recommendation, for anyone who plays in a fixed group: sort this out in one go, with the whole group, instead of discovering mid-match that half the team cannot talk to each other. Each person does the verification, everyone checks the bracket they got, and whoever was left out of the conversation comes in through Trusted Friends. It takes a few minutes once, and it avoids the situation where the team coordinates through an outside app because the in-game chat does not reach everyone.
Sources
Ready-to-use artifact
| Bracket | Chat inside a game | Chat outside a game |
|---|---|---|
| under 9 | off by default; only with guardian consent after the check | restricted |
| 9 to 12 | own bracket and neighbouring brackets | restricted (rule applies under 13) |
| 13 to 15 | own bracket and neighbouring brackets | open |
| 16 to 17 | own bracket and neighbouring brackets | open |
| 18 to 20 | own bracket and neighbouring brackets | open |
| 21 and up | own bracket and neighbouring brackets | open |
| Official example | Estimated bracket | Talks to |
|---|---|---|
| Elisa | 12 years old | anyone 15 or under, in experience chat |
| Marcus | 18 years old | anyone 16 or older |
Rules as stated in the official announcement of 19/11/2025, checked on 23/09/2026. Source: about.roblox.com/newsroom/2025/11/roblox-requires-age-checks-limits-minor-and-adult-chat